Riding the Storm out: 500 new Northstar riders in Dec. storm

During a Dec. 9 snowstorm that snarled Twin Cities metro traffic, the Northstar commuter trains pulled in another 500 people on that day alone, according to Metro Transit, the operator of the service, in comments made to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The five round-trips that day carried nearly 2,800 passengers, or about 20% above what the normal daily average (2,400) has been in the service's first 5 weeks of operation.

The trains operate between Big Lake and Downtown Minneapolis, and operate over trackage owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

Northstar Miscellany

Two things to note about Minnesota's commuter train:

1. Ridership for the second half of November, 2009 was slightly below estimates. The report did acknowledge the fact that Thanksgiving day (a day where no trains operate) did indeed occur during the time period. Ridership average 2,207 per day, slightly under the 2,460 estimated daily average. The release from Metro Transit, operator of the service, says that ridership patterns will not emerge until after the first of the year.

2. Metro Transit has leased a MP36 locomotive from the Utah Transit Authority, operator of the Salt Lake City-Ogden-Brigham City 'FrontRunner' commuter trains. The engine is intended to be a spare for the Northstar locomotives currently in service. The locomotive is undergoing repaint and refit at Northstar's Big Lake repair/servicing facility.

The last 'bus to nowhere', changes its' route

The Route 889 bus, which is the once-a-day, weekday 'mop-up' for the Northstar Commuter train, will change it's current route in Downtown Minneapolis from travelling on 3rd Ave. South to the every-other-block transit lane on 2nd Ave. South, beginning on December 14th.

The rest of the route, including the lack of stops at Elk River and Big Lake, will continue.

Northstar changes schedule...slightly

Northstar commuter rail schedules will change slightly beginning November 30th. All trains departing Target Field (Downtown Minneapolis), will now leave 5 minutes later than the current schedule. The change was made after many complaints from frequent riders, that the schedule was too tight to get across Downtown Minneapolis to the trains during the rush hour.

In addition, the first morning departure inbound (to Downtown Minneapolis) now departs all stations 5 minutes later, departing Big Lake at 5:05 AM.

The changes also affect the morning 'contra-flow' departure, but does not include any weekend departures.

Northstar after a few days: Analysis

After a few days of actual, common-folk operation of Northstar commuter train service, a few things stand out:

1. The White House is poorly protected compared to Northstar. There are transit Police everywhere. Even at Big Lake, they have some contraption which is supposedly an observation tower, but where it currently is (at Big Lake station, overlooking the parking lot) it might be better used by turning the thing about 120 degrees to the west, and used as a duck blind (or the world's most obtuse deer stand).
2. Need a train schedule? Fuhgeddaboutit, at least on trains and/or at the stations. No schedules to take away available. (In fact, I got mine only because I walked thru the 4th St. Transit Center on my way home after a Minnesota Wild road trip, en route from the Hiawatha Light Rail to my car.) Not only that, next to no one knows about the #887 St. Cloud bus connection (which, as I blogged earlier, does not stop at Becker nor at Clear Lake.) How would they know about it except online?
3. Most of the ticket machines (which do take credit cards, a Metro Transit first) are in obtuse locations, and are poorly marked. In fact, at Big Lake, they face west...and, since the prevailing wind direction is from the west, it will probably take an act of Almighty God (or Yahweh, or Buddha, or Allah, depending on your religion) for train passengers to receive tickets when ice storms hit.
4. Few of the passengers actually want to sit next to each other. On the train I rode, I would estimate that up to 20% of the passengers were out for a joy ride. In fact, one poor guy (who was with his first-grade daughter) actually told his cell phone caller that he was 'stuck with my kid on this train ride' and he'd be back into Downtown Minneapolis 'late' (5:52 PM).
5. Hopefully the regular passengers will figure out that the parking lot you want to park in, is the one where you arrive next to at the END of the day. Seemed that a lot of regular commuters were across the tracks from their cars after coming back from work.
6. Could we have ONE timetable with ALL the connections to and from Northstar trains? Please? Huh? Please??
7. Why no access at Target Field Station, Downtown Minneapolis, directly to the Northstar platform for buses to unload, paid fare area (the bus) to paid fare area (the train platform)? The 'shanks mare' connection from light rail to Northstar is bad enough, having to go via the Target Field left field pavilion concourse, but to have to walk a full block and a half to get a bus at the 4th St. Transit Center is ridiculous. (I'm surprised that this is not an ADA issue.)

OK, I'm off the soap box, for now. Can anyone fix this before people are totally alienated?

Thanks.

Welcome to Along the Right of Way!

I have wanted to do a transportation-related blog for some time, as I have been in the movement of people and products for nearly 30 years, and I think I have some things to say.

This was formerly part of 'Mileposts and Goalposts', my now-solely hockey and sports travel related blog here on Blogspot.com, so now hopefully those of you who don't want some puck with your train (or bus or planes) discussion will be satisfied, also.

Those articles that were about transportation on the old blog are now archived here. Feel free to comment on them at your leisure.

And stay safe out there!

Happy Commuter Train Day, Minnesota! (T)

Good morning, Minnesota. Welcome to the big leagues of transportation.

Today, Monday, November 16, 2009, begins the era of commuter rail in Minnesota, as the Northstar Line started service this morning between Big Lake and Downtown Minneapolis.

The line has been thirteen years in the making, with the political nay-sayers and the NIMBY's howling every single step of the way. Now, it's the people's turn to choose how they get to work.

I have railed in this blog previously as to how inadequate the bus plan (which should feed the trains, instead of the other way around, as the plan is now) is for these trains. No one source can be used for all the schedules; since no one jurisdiction operates everything regarding the train and it's so-called 'friendly' connections.

Hopefully, the service will need to be expanded...and soon. There are gaping holes in the schedule (weekdays mid-day, weekend mornings come to mind) and there's that 60-day notice to the BNSF Railway (the track's owners) about train service to special events (Twins' games at Target Field, events at the Metrodome, just to use two examples) to deal with. Hopefully, the powers-that-be administrating this service will realize that the direction is for expansion, not for sitting on the status quo.

Because, the status quo is what Minnesotans have had for all too long. And the status quo really sucks.

(Photo: Northstar commuter train at storage yard, Big Lake. © Metro Transit 2009. Used with permission.)

They listened! (M)

Last week, I railed against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), and their lack of updated on-line info for the #19 United Center Express bus, which caused five of us to miss most of the pre-game of the Oct. 26 Minnesota Wild-Chicago Blackhawks game at the United Center.

Well, well, well...now at http://transitchicago.com/ there is a brand new list of stops for the route (dated 10/27/2009, the day after the Wild-Hawks game, the day I originally e-mailed my complaint to CTA), and the old schedule (from 2006-07) has been removed. A newer, proper description (not a timetable, sadly) has been put in its' place.

While this doesn't ease the pain of the original screw-up, at least the damage can now be limited.

Road Tripper rule: Always check your timetables while travelling...

WRT

You might need to rethink that Northstar bus plan (T)

Minnesota's Metro Transit has released the bus plan for connecting with the Nov. 16 start-up of the Northstar Commuter train service between Downtown Minneapolis and Big Lake. After reading the plan (and the schedules of the trains themselves, all now available online at http://metrotransit.org/), one has to ask this somewhat simple question:

Who in the hell dreamed this half-baked effort up??

Really. There is no provision for any of the following:

* Going to work at anytime other than 6 AM to 8:30 AM, and only in Downtown Minneapolis
* Anything other than auto travel to stations beyond Anoka (except for St. Cloud)
* Staying late (after 7:00 PM) in Downtown Minneapolis on weeknights (for maybe, dinner and a post-work cocktail?)
* Off-shift travel (or, going home early) especially at mid-day on weekdays
* Weekend work travel or events that start in Minneapolis prior to 2 PM on Saturdays, Noon on Sundays
* Any weekend event in any of the Northstar suburbs

This bus plan is horrid at best. Here are some of the community pairs that should be served by connecting service to Northstar:

To Big Lake from: Becker, Clear Lake, Clearwater, Monticello
To Elk River from: Rogers, Otsego, Princeton, Zimmerman, also to/from Downtown Elk River itself (the Elk River stop is east of US 169, at the existing Route 888 park-and-ride)
To Anoka from: Ramsey, Champlin, Oak Grove
To Coon Rapids (Riverdale) from: Andover, Eastern Coon Rapids (east of US 10)

There will be a new bus route (Route 889) which will only run ONE TRIP A DAY on weekdays at 7:00 PM from Downtown Minneapolis; unfortunately, the bus will only serve Coon Rapids and Anoka, and will NOT GO to Elk River, nor to Big Lake. Why no bus service to these communities? (The existing bus Route 888, which runs between Elk River, Coon Rapids and Downtown Minneapolis, goes away when Northstar begins operation November 16th.)

Why there is not 4-5 bus trips at off-peak hours weekdays, (there are contractual issues needing to be resolved with BNSF Railway, in order to run more trains) and 3-4 trips on weekends, in order to make those trains that DO operate more useful? And, why are there not Route 889 trips in the inbound direction?

Granted, there are trips currently (Route 877) from Ramsey directly to Downtown Minneapolis. These trips should be changed in order to feed into Northstar at Anoka station, at least until Ramsey gets its' own platform (scheduled for Phase II of the Northstar project, depending on funding, as is a platform at the existing 950-space Foley Park-and-Ride in eastern Coon Rapids).

Make the service as useful to as wide a population as possible. Yes, we understand, Minnesota is not made of money (as if we don't know that already?), but this would be a very wise investment, so as to make the train as useful to as wide a population as possible.

The plan also admits that the existing local transit in Elk River ('RiverRider') will not meet any Northstar train, which makes the train option useless for those who work in Elk River and don't want to drive. Now, forgive me for asking, but wasn't part of all this planning an exercise to see how many autos we could get off the roads in the affected areas? In Big Lake, the problem is worse: the local dial-a-ride service doesn't even operate after 5 PM, making that service totally useless to Northstar riders.

The Northstar Link express bus service to St. Cloud (http://www.catchthelink.com/) is also of limited use, as there will be no connection to the rest of the St. Cloud MTC system at their hub in Downtown St. Cloud, as the Link service will not even go beyond the city-owned park-and-ride on St. Cloud's southeast side. With limited options for even service to the most populated city on the potential second phase of Northstar, what good is it for people living in the Twin Cities and working in St. Cloud?

The Northstar Link will pass thru, but will not stop at, Becker and Clear Lake en route to St. Cloud. Another egregious mistake by the Northstar Corridor Development Agency, the public body to which this was assigned.

People will actually go out of their way to use the service, if it is even somewhat conveinent for them to use it. The basic premise that everyone will just magically change their lives to fit an inconveinent schedule which someone says, 'That's the best we can do', is a woeful commentary in a 'Me, me, me' society. The phrase so often echoed as the private railroads were cutting back passenger schedules in the 1960's and '70's -- 'You can't get there from here' -- still rings true some 40-50 years later.

And that is a very sad commentary of the modern state of public transportation in Minnesota.